Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

thenation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 183 posts

Re: More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

#41

Post by beenBoutIT »

fencepost wrote: post #23
cesnja wrote: post #14

The article doesn't mention meat and dairy as a source of surprisingly high levels pesticides and their byproducts. [1] https://medium.com/center-for-biological-diversity/does-meat...

That's what happens when you're effectively an apex predator - you eat the things that eat the things with contamination and much of it gets concentrated into you, particularly the things that bioaccumulate over time. Outside of pesticides but similar, that's why it's important to limit things like tuna consumption particularly from larger species that can build to high mercury levels.

IIRC, there has never been a case of mercury toxicity from normal consumption of commercial seafood recorded in any American medical journal. These larger species you mention could exist outside of that sphere.

Re: More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

#43

Post by sushisushisushi »

reallydude wrote: post #5
john-radio wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank god we have you here to guess!

And you to second guess? The burden of proof is on the assertion.

The assertion that needs to be proven is "pesticides in the amounts that currently exist in the food supply chain do not have adverse effects on human health," wise guy.

Re: More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

#44

Post by ben509 »

coldtea wrote: post #20
stillbourne wrote: post #3

Sola dosis facit venenum. It's not about that its there, its about how much there is. My guess is not enough to warrant the effort it took to write this article.

Yeah, everything is perfect in modern food industry nutrients and dangerous non-food crap substances-wise...

Bodies have evolved to deal with crap substances through metabolism and excretion, so it just has to be Good Enough.

If you live to 85 and get cancer, by all means try and figure out how to deal with the cancer, but a positive mindset would also appreciate that you lived to 85.

Re: More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

#45

Post by ben509 »

reallydude wrote: post #5
john-radio wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank god we have you here to guess!

And you to second guess? The burden of proof is on the assertion.

Unless discussion is just going to be about scoring points, the burden of proof is on anyone who is intellectually curious.

Re: More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

#47

Post by ChuckMcM »

devmunchies wrote: post #7

Is it possible to grow enough food in your backyard to live off of (plus chickens as a yard waste disposal) if you also work full time? I can't even eat at a restaurant without knowing if they use organic produce.

No it isn't possible. But if you're married (or cohabitating) it is possible for one of you to focus on wealth creation and the other to focus on supplying edibles such that you both have a good quality of life and reasonably self sufficient food production.

The things you can't produce will be flour, sugar, spices (salt, pepper, Etc.) and will need to import, but with a flock of chickens and a dairy cow, and roughly 5 acres of land you can provide everything else. As I recall the Firefox survivalist series gave a pretty complete recipe for what you needed. You can substitute goats for the cow if you are ok with getting your milk, cheese, and meat that way. I don't recall if there was a purely vegetarian or vegan recipe.

Re: More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

#48

Post by gabbygab »

cesnja wrote: post #14

The article doesn't mention meat and dairy as a source of surprisingly high levels pesticides and their byproducts. [1] https://medium.com/center-for-biological-diversity/does-meat...

What does that matter? If we get it from directly from plants we eat or indirectly through meat, you are still getting pesticides.

Re: More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

#49

Post by wpasc »

devmunchies wrote: post #40
Deestan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic produce uses tons of pesticides some of which are really nasty (but hey it's "natural" copper sulfate), so that's not a solution to anything.

i thought organic by definition meant that it didn't use pesticides.

No it just means that it uses a particular subset of pesticides and follows certain parameters. Many people will argue that its just a nonsense credential while others will say "better than nothing". I personally count myself in the latter

Re: More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

#50

Post by noobermin »

devmunchies wrote: post #7

Is it possible to grow enough food in your backyard to live off of (plus chickens as a yard waste disposal) if you also work full time? I can't even eat at a restaurant without knowing if they use organic produce.

No, and this attitude of saving yourself so the rest of us can suffer is a large part of the problem with America. It only is better than the other attitude where you can make others suffer and profit off of it.
Post reply on HN